


Of Imaginary Friends

by Lampshadez



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, character gets triggered, character has a panic attack, talk about panic attacks, talk about triggers, the trigger is imaginary friends if you're wondering, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 22:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10522953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lampshadez/pseuds/Lampshadez
Summary: Waverly's daughter has an imaginary friend.  Waverly doesn't have the best reaction.Basically, Waverly is living her life with her family and figuring out how to move forward while still resolving her past.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wynonna Earp is now on Netflix and I'm doing a rewatch. I finished episode 2, where we learn that Bobo posed as Waverly's imaginary friend in order to get her to bury the talisman so the Seven could raid the homestead. So, Waverly really only has bad memories of imaginary friends, but she wants to be good for her daughter.  
> Also I love an excuse to write Professor!Waverly and also include the ongoing process of recovering from an awful childhood.
> 
> WARNING - there is talk about triggers in here and panic attacks. Waverly gets triggered and has a panic attack, and both are talked about. Read safely, everybody.

Waverly was in her living room, reclining on her favorite chair with a glass of wine and some essays that needed to be graded.  She liked this time of night, where she could relax and get some work done.  She did find grading papers to be relaxing, in a way – though there were certainly times her students frustrated her with their work (or lack thereof), she did love being a professor.  Even if it meant working well into the night after a day of lectures and Black Badge consulting.

She was in her grading groove when she heard footsteps in the hallway.  She looked up and saw her four-year-old daughter standing in the doorway of the living room.

“Hey baby girl,” Waverly said.  “What are you doing up?”

“I can’t sleep, Mommy.”

“You can’t?” Waverly asked.  Her reply was a firm shake of the head.  “Do you want to come sit with me for a bit?”

Waverly made room for her daughter to sit and soon she had her daughter on her lap.

“What’s wrong?” Waverly asked.  “Did you have a bad dream or something?”

“No.  I tried to sleep but I didn’t fall asleep.  It was really boring.”

Waverly chuckled.  “Yeah, I’ll bet.  You know, when I was little, Aunt Gus used to tell me to count backwards from a hundred to get to sleep.”

“I can’t count to a hundred!”

“Do you want to learn?” Waverly asked.  “We could work on numbers.”

“That sounds boring, Mommy.”

Waverly laughed.  “Yeah, it does.  Hey, what were you doing when you were bored just now?  You were just lying in bed?”

“I was talking to my friend.”

“What friend?” Waverly asked.  “We’re the only ones home, sweetie.”

“My friend Amy is here.”

“What?  Where?”

“Over there.”  She pointed across the room, giggling.

“I don’t see her.”  Waverly could feel her heart rate getting faster.  She knew there was no way a kid that wasn’t hers came into her house without her knowing.

“Well, you can’t see her, Mommy.  Only I can see her.”

“What?”  Waverly was relieved – she was glad there wasn’t some random kid in her house without her knowing about it.  But this might actually be worse than that.  She felt her breath catch in her throat as she anticipated the answer to her question.

“Only I can see her,” she repeated, like it was the simplest thing.

“You have an imaginary friend,” Waverly said quietly, mostly to herself.

“What’s that?”

“It’s-,” Waverly stammered, trying to find the right words.  Her heart was pounding, she had a cold sweat on the back of her neck.  “It’s not real.  Amy’s not real.”

“Amy’s my friend.”

“No, she’s not real!” Waverly said, speaking before thinking at this point.  “She’s not real.  Don’t talk to her.  Don’t talk about her.”

Waverly looked down at her daughter and saw tears in her eyes.  Waverly suddenly remembered everything she just said and heard her tone replay in her head.

“Hey, no,” she said.  “I’m sorry, baby.  Let’s just get you back to bed, okay?”

Waverly kissed her head and carried her back to bed, but could tell she was still crying a little bit.

She didn’t know what to say, though.  There were lots of time as a parent when she didn’t know what to say or what to do and she just winged it, but she’d never done this.  She’d never snapped at her daughter like this. 

“I’m sorry I yelled,” she said again from the bedroom doorway.  “Good night.  I love you.”

She shut the door and went back to the other room.

**-WE-**

The next morning was odd.  Waverly got herself and her daughter ready for the day but they were both still a little shaken.  Waverly tried to act like everything was okay, but something was off.

She went to Black Badge after stopping for drop off at day care and found Nicole in the precinct area.

“Hey,” Nicole said warmly but tiredly.  “Good morning, baby.”

“Good morning,” Waverly said.  She and Nicole didn’t really kiss at work, definitely not at the police precinct, but Waverly took Nicole’s hand on the counter.

“You okay?” Nicole asked.  “I’ve been up all night and somehow you look more tired.”

Waverly shook her head.  “No, I’m fine.”  Nicole didn’t look convinced.  “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Okay,” Nicole said.  “Well, I get off soon and I have tomorrow off, so I thought I might pick the little rascal up from day care and hang out with her for the day.”

“Why?”

Nicole looked a little taken aback.  “Because she’s our daughter and I want to see her…?”

“Sorry,” Waverly said, shaking her head a bit to clear her head.  “I just…I think she should spend more time there.  It’ll be good to see kids her age and make friends.”

“She has friends,” Nicole said.  “She’s been to birthday parties every Saturday this month.”

“I know,” Waverly said.  “Can she stay just stay at day care today?  At least for a little while?”

Nicole nodded after a second.  “Okay, sure.  She has fun there, anyway.  And, I could use a nap.”

Waverly squeezed her hand.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

**-WE-**

Later, Waverly was eating lunch with Wynonna and Dolls in Black Badge.  Dolls usually worked during lunch, so he was reading files while the sisters chatted.

“Hey, did you ever have an imaginary friend?” Waverly asked.

“No,” Wynonna chuckled.

“I did,” Dolls said.  He got surprised looks from Waverly and Wynonna.  “His name was Ringo.”

“ _Ringo_?” Wynonna asked.

“My mom got us this book about Arizona and there were tons of pictures of the ringtail cat, the state animal.”

“That’s a silly state animal.”

“The mammal of Alberta is the bighorn sheep,” Dolls replied, smirking. 

Wynonna didn’t know what to do with that.

“How old were you?” Waverly asked.

“And Ringo was a cat, then, right?” Wynonna asked.

“I don’t know, probably four or five,” Dolls said.

“And you grew out of it when you were five?”

“Or when I was around seven, yeah.”

“Seven?” Wynonna asked.

“All the movies at the time had a cool animal sidekick,” Dolls replied.  “Don’t be jealous that mine was a really cool cat and you all were stuck with a sheep up here.”

“The provincial animal does not determine what form your imaginary friend takes-.”

“Anyway,” Waverly said, cutting off Wynonna and subsequently Dolls before this got any further.  Usually she didn’t mind them joking and bickering like this, but the subject matter made it feel grating.  “How did you grow out of it?”

Dolls shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I just did.  I guess I just got to that age.”  He went to take a drink and finished his mug.  “Anyone want coffee?”

Both Waverly and Wynonna shook their heads and he went outside.

“You know, it’s normal for kids to have imaginary friends,” Wynonna said.

“I know,” Waverly said.  “That’s what’s killing me about this.  My daughter is normal, somehow.  She’s okay and she’s growing up way better than we did.”

Wynonna smiled a bit.  Waverly’s words were true, they all worked really hard (and happily) to make sure that kid had the best life possible.  If Wynonna was being honest, she spoiled her and Wynonna did not care at all.  She would let her stay up late when she was at Wynonna’s or Wynonna was watching her, she’d let her eat candy and she gave her so many piggyback rides that Waverly was pretty sure that there were probably entire days that she spent at Wynonna's without actually walking anywhere.

Dolls isn’t the kind of person who loves hanging out with kids, but he cares about his friends and their families.  He’s babysat with Wynonna and spent time with the Earp-Haught family and he’s great.  Doc is, too, somehow.  He doesn’t live in town anymore, he just travels to all the places he never got to see before but when he visits, he makes sure to bring gifts.

And, of course, Waverly and Nicole love their daughter to pieces.  There were a lot of conversations and decisions and plans that went into having a kid and they were committed through the entire process to being the best at it they could.  Waverly had no idea how, but somehow she turned into a pretty good parent.

“She has an imaginary friend,” Waverly said.  “And it just never occurred to me that she might, you know?  And I just didn’t prepare for it.”

“Her imaginary friend isn’t Bobo,” Wynonna said, firm but gentle.  She and Waverly didn’t talk about it, but there was something about having a kid around that brought a person back to their own childhood.  They both had had difficult experiences with those memories and triggers coming up.

“I know,” Waverly said.  “But she said it and I just…”

“I get it,” Wynonna said.  “I mean obviously it’s different, she’s not my kid, but it can be hard to see someone you love go through something or get involved with something that was so bad for you, even if it isn’t for them.”

“Yeah,” Waverly said, not knowing how to say the words.  She knew what the words were – she had a panic attack.  She’d had them before and she knew she’d probably have some more again.  She knew what usually set them off, though, and while she could’ve probably guessed that imaginary friends would be on the list, she never thought about that particular topic enough to be sure.  In short, she was caught off guard and unprepared and she ended up frightening and hurting her daughter, and she didn’t know what to do with that.  “She told me about her imaginary friend last night and she was fine and she was happy and I yelled at her.  She cried.”

“Kids cry all the time,” Wynonna said.  “She cried the other day because I wouldn’t let her play with my lighter.”

Waverly laughed a bit.  “I don’t know, Wynonna.  I feel really bad, and she was still a bit shaken this morning.  This friend is important to her.”

“She’ll get over it,” Wynonna said.  “She’ll be fine, Waverly.”

“I shouldn’t have yelled at her.”

“Yeah, but you did,” Wynonna said.  Waverly gave her a look.  “You can’t really explain what you’re going through to her.  And if you really want a no-imaginary-friend rule, fine.  She’ll make other friends and probably forget all about this.  You’re a good mom, Waves.”

“I haven’t thought about Bobo in years,” Waverly said.  It’d been almost ten years since the curse was broken, and even more since they got rid of Bobo.  “I don’t like thinking about that.”

“Maybe talk to her about it,” Wynonna said.  “If you’re worried about this friend, talk to her.  If anyone had listened to you, they might’ve realized it was Bobo.”

“It’s definitely not Bobo-.”

“I know,” Wynonna said.  “But it works the other way, too.  Hearing about it might show how not bad it is.”

Waverly leaned back in her chair, thinking.

“If you want to, I mean,” Wynonna continued.  “It’s a tricky situation and the whole imaginary friend thing is obviously complicated, so don’t do anything you’re too uncomfortable with.”

“No, you’re right,” Waverly said.  “I can’t change that I yelled at her but we can talk about it or something.  Her friend makes her happy, I don’t want to stop that.”

Wynonna nodded.  “Okay.  Good luck.”

**-WE-**

“Hey, baby girl,” Waverly said, helping her daughter sit down at the dinner table that night.  “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Mhm.”

“What’s your friend Amy like?”

“You said she wasn’t real.”

“I know,” Waverly said.  “I meant that I couldn’t see her.  Still, I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“It’s okay, Mommy.”

Waverly smiled.  She was still nervous, her heart was pounding a bit, but it was a good kind of nervous.  “You know she’s different from your other friends, though, right?”

“I know.  She’s purple.”

“She’s purple?” Waverly laughed.  “Okay, what else?”

“She’s really tall,” she continued.  “She’s, like, uh.  She’s twenty foots tall.”

“She’s twenty feet tall?” Waverly asked.  “Kind of like your Mama, huh?”

“What was that about me?” Nicole asked, walking in and putting dinner on the table.

“Nothing, babe,” Waverly said.  “Kiddo’s just telling me about her imaginary friend Amy, who apparently is twenty foots tall, just like you.”

“Don’t listen to your mom, she’s just upset because soon you’ll be taller than her, too,” Nicole said, ruffling her daughter’s hair.

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah,” Nicole said.  “I think in, like, a couple of years.  You don’t have that much more to go.”

Waverly laughed, shaking her head.  She loved her family.  It took a while for her to come around to the idea of having one like this, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything.  She used to think that maybe she was past everything she was afraid of about families and children and being a parent and all the stuff that hung onto her from her own childhood, but every now and then she gets reminded that all that stuff is part of who she is.  It’s not going anywhere, no matter where she goes and what she does.  She had her memories and experiences and her flaws and her triggers and her successes and her failures and all of it was who she was, even if it hurt sometimes.  Even if it didn’t always stay resolved or didn’t ever really be resolved.

But it was who she was.  And sitting there, watching her wife and her daughter, she was pretty damn happy with that.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate writing children. If you've read some of my fic, maybe at various points you've been like "damn it, Lampshadez, give them children and give us domestic fluff!" Well, I hate writing children because I think they are very hard to get right, so I never write them. But I didn't think this plot would work without actually meeting the kid, so she's in it.  
> Anyway, please let me know what you think!


End file.
